Criminals 'under supervision': Murderer Dano Sonnex

Blunders in the supervision of violent drug addict Dano Sonnex meant he was
free to kill French students Gabriel Ferez and Laurent Bonomo last year.

4:18PM GMT 26 Oct 2009

As a dangerous offender, Sonnex's case was briefly discussed by a Mappa panel in October 2007 but some details of his background were missing - because an office printer was broken - and no decision over who should supervise him on release was made.

He was due to be discussed again in last January but was not. Without the full assessment, he was judged to pose a "medium" risk to the public and released to be supervised by a rank-and-file probation officer.

In June last year, four months after his release from prison for stabbing a teenager, he and his accomplice, Nigel Farmer, brutally tortured and murdered the two 23-year-old biochemistry students.Mr Straw apologised for "very serious failings" and said that

They stabbed their victims 244 times and burnt their bodies in "sadistic" murders described by detectives as the most horrific they had seen.Four months before the killings, he had been released from jail for stabbing a teenager, and was not returned to prison despite re-offending while out on licence.

Two days after his original release, in February last year, Sonnex tied up and threatened a pregnant female relative and her partner. Police interviewed him but the victims were too scared to press charges.

Related Articles

In April, he was then charged with handling stolen goods and remanded in custody for three weeks before being released on bail.

In May, probation chiefs decided Sonnex should be sent back to prison but delays with the paperwork meant that it took 33 days to recall him. Police then did not act on notice to arrest Sonnex for breach of licence for 16 days. Officers finally turn up at his last known address. However, Sonnex had killed the two French students just hours earlier .